


precious and fragile things

by psycheDahlia



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, Takes place where Peekaboo leaves off
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-10-18 02:38:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10607574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psycheDahlia/pseuds/psycheDahlia
Summary: Jesse looks back at the kid and suddenly it feels like someone is twisting a corkscrew right into the center of his chest. The kid covers his eyes, then parts his fingers to peer through them.“Peekaboo,” the kid says.“Shit.” Jesse mutters. “Shit, shit, shit…”He locks eyes with the kid and desperately waves him over. The kid wriggles a little, climbing down from the porch, and runs in his stocking feet over to Jesse, who gets him into his arms right as the cops turn the corner. [[INDEFINITE HIATUS]]





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Precious" by Depeche Mode

“Just don’t go back inside, okay?”

The streetlamp casts an eerie whitish glow over the whole scene, and it hits the kid’s eyes in a way to make them look even wider and more vulnerable than they were before, which is saying something, because this kid could earn a goddamn award for having the biggest, most pitiful eyes on the fucking planet.

Jesse pauses, waits for the kid to respond. Kid gives a tiny nod, eventually. Jesse hopes against all hope that the kid actually keeps his word, seeing as the kid had come wandering out of his room twice after Jesse had instructed him to stay put. But this time he understood that Jesse was serious, right? Surely he wouldn’t go back into that house…

Right?

Jesse can hear the sirens getting closer. The sound is bouncing off the houses, making it sound like this place is being approached from all sides. He hopes that’s just an illusion, anyway. If they really were coming from all sides, Jesse would be in some serious shit.

He has to go. Now.

The kid’s shivering enough to get his bare legs slightly scraped by the cold concrete. Jesse adjusts the blanket, wraps it more firmly around the kid. He looks up at Jesse with those streetlamp-shiny eyes and blinks, slowly. The corners of his mouth twitch downward, briefly, and Jesse suspects the kid has something to say but doesn’t quite know how to say it. Or maybe Jesse’s just projecting.

Is this right? Leaving him here? Judging by the sirens, the cops should be there to get him any second, but what if they let him go back into the house? What if the kid had to see what Jesse saw, had his still infantile mind warped by the horrific display that had even disturbed Jesse, even with all the shit he’d seen in his life...

The sound of the siren was almost deafening now, making his ears ring. Red and blue lights join the whitish light from the streetlamp to bathe the house in patriotic hues.

He has to go, _now._

He looks down at the child, feels like he should say something. But what do you say to a child whose meth-faced mother had just smashed the head of his addict father with a stolen ATM machine? It wasn’t exactly the kind of situation Jesse saw daily. And honestly, thank god for that. Jesse was fucked up enough as it was.

Jesse has a massive lump forming in his throat, making him feel like he swallowed a goddamn bowling ball. He swallows it down and then bends so he’s face to face with the child, and then braces his hands on the boy’s shoulders and squeezes gently, trying to put all of the emotion he’s feeling into this one singular gesture of affection.

“You have a good rest of your life, kid.”

He tears away his gaze somehow, starts to head down the driveway, keeps going at a brisk pace once he hits the sidewalk. He shoves his hands into his pockets and tries his damnedest to be the cold, heartless thug he’d always tried to play himself up as. But every time he tries to freeze up his heart, this sharp white-hot jolt of lightning shot right through it, melting it instantly and shattering him painfully right to his core.

“Don’t look back,” he mutters to himself, already knowing he’s not going to take his own advice.

Well, hey, he had to check to make sure the kid was still there, right? That was only right. That’d give him some peace of mind, maybe.

He gives a quick glance over his shoulder. Yeah, the kid’s still there, still watching him leave. Lights catch Jesse’s eye and when he looks he can see the cop cars between the houses. They’ll be rounding the corner in a minute, tops.

Jesse looks back at the kid and suddenly it feels like someone is twisting a corkscrew right into the center of his chest.

The kid covers his eyes, then parts his fingers to peer through them.

“Peekaboo,” the kid says.

Of course, Jesse can’t actually hear him from where he is, especially with all the sirens, but he can read it on the kid’s mouth. He can watch the word get formed. Lips stretched to the sides for the long ‘e’ sound, then opened for the short ‘a’, and finally rounded for the long ‘o.’ Jesse feels like he’s watching it in slow motion, can feel like something significant has just shifted.

“Shit.” Jesse mutters. “Shit, shit, shit…”

He locks eyes with the kid and quickly waves him over. The kid wriggles a little, climbing down from the porch, and runs in his stocking feet over to Jesse, who gets him into his arms right as the cops turn the corner.

The kid weighs practically nothing. He might as well just be carrying the blanket the kid’s wrapped up in, for how much strain it’s putting on Jesse’s biceps to lift this tiny figure and then carry him down the street. Jesse has the strongest urge to run, to just book it down the street as fast as he can, but he forces himself to act natural. Thankfully he has more willpower in acting natural than he did in not looking back at the house, because he can’t afford to cave a second time tonight. The police would be on him like flies on flypaper if he started running from a crime scene. Nope, best to just play it natural – because there’s nothing strange about a young-looking dude with a massive bottle-inflicted bruise blooming on the side of his head carrying a half-naked child down the street at 4am, right?

According to the Albuquerque police department, apparently not. Two cop cars zoom right past Jesse and don’t even see fit to ask him what the fuck he’s doing outside at this hour. Jesse’s spent the scant few seconds he’s had desperately concocting a cover story in his head – “He’s my kid brother, he wet himself at a slumber party and we live right around the corner so I’m just carrying him home” -  that was apparently all for naught. He can’t say he’s exactly upset the story didn’t get used, though. It feels like a five-hundred-pound weight has just been lifted off his shoulders when he finds himself walking down an empty street with no cop cars in sight.

He peeks down at the child in his arms and is relieved to find him asleep. That saves him the trouble of having to explain to the kid how what he’s doing isn’t _technically_ kidnapping because his parents are asshole meth-heads, oh, except now only his mother’s an asshole meth-head because his father’s dead and also his mother’s now a murderer, assuming of course that she hadn’t been one before Jesse had shown up on their doorstep, which Jesse finds frankly unlikely. The deadness in that woman’s eyes hadn’t all been from the drugs. There was a distinct coldness there that just screamed “I’ve killed before”.

They round the corner to wear Jesse had stashed his car before heading over to Spooge’s. Jesse gets a weird feeling when he thinks about the fact that when he parked his car here, Spooge was alive, and in the time it took Jesse to return to this car, Spooge had died. Jesse really didn’t like thinking about stuff like that, it made his brain itch like there were ants crawling around in there. He laid the kid down on the hood while he fumbled in his pockets for his keys. Finally fishing them out from the too-deep, too-baggy pocket of his track pants, he unlocks the rear passenger side door and then leaves it open as he rounds the front of the car, scoops up the still-sleeping child, and then Jesse’s laying him down across the back seat and fixing his blanket so that it’s covering his legs when Jesse notices that the bare skin is covered in little goose-pimples.

Jesse swings around the front of his car and unlocks the driver side door, sliding into the familiar leather seat with a sigh. He peeks in his rearview, sees the kid, small and grubby, dressed in filthy clothes and only half-dressed at that, wrapped in a blanket that Jesse had noticed smelled heavily of heat and dust for some reason, like the first time you turn on a radiator in winter.

He scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands, takes a deep breath, and jams the key into the ignition.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesse takes the kid home and talks with Jane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! Finals took a lot out of me, haha!

He doesn’t really know where else to go, so eventually he just goes home.

The sun’s just starting to peek out over the horizon when Jesse’s little red car rolls to a stop next to the curb. He squints at the yellow duplex he now calls home. No sign of life from Jane’s side, which is good. He isn’t sure he’d be able to explain this in a way that didn’t end with Jane kicking him out as the best-case scenario and his ass in some federal prison as probably the worst.

Well, okay, the worst would probably involve, like, some obscure predator animal like a…like a…like a _puma_ or something, getting loose from the zoo, eating all his drugs, and mauling him while also simultaneously giving him the clap, while he then miraculously survived for _days_ before bleeding out alone on his floor, and then after dying just totally pissing, shitting, and vomiting all over himself all at the same time and probably even getting one of those post-death boners just to make sure whoever found him was suitably disgusted.

Jesse blinks his way out of that unsettling tangent and realizes then that he’s maybe getting slightly hazy from having had the only time he spent unconscious last night be from a blow to the head rather than from peacefully dozing off. He peeks at the rearview again and sees the kid’s still fast asleep. But Jesse knows damn well that won’t last too long, and while he knows the kid had definitely spent plenty of time on his own before he really doesn’t want to accidentally doze off and leave the kid unattended.

He gets out of the car, keeping a wary eye on Jane’s door, and gathers the kid up in his arms, blanket and all. The kid stirs very slightly and Jesse’s heart skips a beat, but the kid just nuzzles against Jesse’s shirt, makes a sleepy kind of “Hmmm” sound, and returns to still, peaceful slumber. Jesse breathes a sigh of relief and carries the kid inside. Kid’s so small he doesn’t even have to set him down to unlock the door, just shifts him so all his weight is resting against only one of Jesse’s arms.

Once inside, Jesse curses himself for having put off buying furniture for so long. Granted, he wasn’t expecting to have a child staying with him. He carries the kid to the bedroom, laying him down in the makeshift bed he’d formed by putting all his t-shirts and hoodies into a vaguely bed-shaped pile and then laying a sleeping bag over top. He has no idea how to get the kid into the sleeping bag without waking him, so he just lays him on top of the whole pile and then grabs one of his heavier hoodies and drapes it over the kid.

Jesse closes the bedroom door to give the kid a dark and quiet place to finish sleeping, hoping the kid won’t be too freaked out when he wakes up.

For his own bed, Jesse retreats to the living room where he’d set up a somewhat cozy area underneath the windows. The glass bong on the floor, the bottom filled with filthy bong water, demonstrates exactly why this area was made. It’s really not nearly as soft as the “bed” he made in the bedroom, but it’s a pillow and a comforter, and the comforter is big enough for him to lay down on it and then also wrap it around himself, serving as both mattress and blanket. It’s not exactly comfortable, but Jesse isn’t exactly picky right now. He’s asleep minutes after his head hits the pillow.

/

He wakes up to a faintly floral scent that’s slightly familiar and makes his mouth curl into a half-smile of its own accord. His heartbeat picks up pace and then picks up pace even further when he opens his eyes and finds a very pretty face quite close to his own.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Jane says. She’s next to his makeshift bed, sitting on her heels and leaning so close to him that she’d only have to dip her head a few inches and they’d be kissing. Jesse pulls his blankets up to his sternum even though he’s fully dressed, still wearing his jeans and everything, because he’s feeling somehow exposed suddenly.

Jane sweeps her hair back over her shoulder and he catches another whiff of that floral smell he’d noticed upon waking. He realizes it must be her shampoo. He feels a little drunk.

“Morning,” he murmurs, scrubbing a hand down his face.  His voice is slightly raspy from sleep. “Mm, what time is it?”

Jane checks her watch. “Like, quarter to ten?”

Jesse nods, then yawns, pressing a fist to his mouth to stifle it and leaning back away from her a bit, self-conscious about his morning breath. “So, uh, what’s up? You, uh, get sick of looking at all that furniture in your place and come over here for a change in scenery, or what?”

Jane chuckles, a soft, deep sound that seems to come right from the center of her chest. Jesse swallows thickly.

“Good guess,” Jane says, “But no. I actually wanted to ask you something.”

God, and he thought his heart was pounding fast before. “Oh yeah? What, uh, what did you wanna ask me?”

Jane peeks over her shoulder. Jesse doesn’t follow her gaze, instead staring at the way the muscles in her neck and shoulder grow taut under smooth ivory skin.

She turns back, her hair swishing back forward over her shoulder and enveloping Jesse in fruity-floral perfume. She leans in even closer. Jesse’s face feels hot, his pulse stuttering. His eyes slipped close, half-expecting her to kiss him, but instead he gets goosebumps as her hot breath ghosts over the shell of his ear.

He’s so flustered he only just catches it when she whispers, delicate and light, into his ear, “Whose kid is that?”

She leans back and looks into his eyes, long and hard, as though looking for something there though Jesse isn’t sure what that would be. And then, she looks over her shoulder again, and Jesse follows her gaze this time.

All the events of the previous night come flooding back as he sees the child, just as small and grubby and red-headed as he was last night, sitting on (not at, but _on_ ) Jesse’s kitchen counter and munching happily on a bowl of cereal that looks absolutely massive in his tiny hands.

Seeing that Jesse is awake, the kid grins this thousand-watt grin and waves to Jesse with the hand clutching the spoon, sending little milk splatters flying.

Jesse sheepishly waves back, then looks back at Jane, who’s looking between Jesse and the kid like somehow that’s going to give her some kind of answer.

“Yeah,” Jesse breathes. “Yeah, I guess I’d have some questions too, if I were you.”

Jane bites her lip and nods wordlessly.

“Hey, uh,” Jesse remembers that he doesn’t actually know the kid’s name. “Uh, little dude?” The kid looks over. “Yeah, I’m just gonna step outside and talk with my friend Jane here really quick, okay? You just keep working on your breakfast and I’ll be back in like five minutes. Okay?”

The kid nods and shoves a massive spoonful of cereal into his mouth. Jesse can’t help but grin as rainbow crumbs and milk dribble down the kid’s chin.

“One sec,” Jesse says to Jane, kicking off his blankets and stepping around his landlord to enter the kitchen. He tears off a strip of paper towel and gently cleans the kid’s face.

“You’re a mess,” Jesse says affectionately, and the kid giggles. Jesse crumples the paper towel and chucks it into the trash. Now within touching distance, Jesse ruffles the kid’s hair. The texture is both crusty and greasy. He stifles the urge to wince, deciding to give the kid a bath the second he’s done eating.

“Five minutes, alright?” Jesse says, looking into the kid’s eyes. “Promise.”

He leaves the kid on the counter, and leads Jane out the front door and onto the porch.

He waits until he hears the door click behind them before he turns to her, takes her by the shoulders so she’s standing in front of her own front door.

“Jesse, what…?”

He lets her go, the warmth of her body beneath the soft cotton of her t-shirt still radiating through his fingertips.

“Sorry, I…” He swallows. “I just don’t want him to see my face through the window when I tell you this; I’m trying to make him think everything’s chill.”

“What’s going on?” Jane asks. “You’re, uh, you’re kind of scaring me, man.”

Jesse shakes his head. “No, no, sorry, I…” He offers her what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “Don’t be scared, okay? It’s nothing like that.”

“Well what is it, then?”

He runs a hand through his hair, slightly tousled still from sleep. “He’s, uh, my friend…” Jesse pauses. He was just going to say it was his friend’s kid, but he doesn’t want to describe Spooge as his “friend”, not even as a lie, so he changes the story. “My friend told me about this couple who got arrested and how their kid was, like, just sitting there alone having no idea what was going on, and like, I didn’t know what else to do other than go over there and get the kid and bring him here until it all blows over. I’m sorry, but it’s just temporary, I swear.”

Jane furrows her brow. “Wait, so the cops arrested his parents and just left him, like, sitting there?”

Jesse chews his lip. “No, uh, the kid was at home. The parents got arrested at a, uh, a gas station or something. Yeah, they were, uh, trying to steal this ATM.”

Jane snorts. “That’s so dumb. How would they even get it open?”

“Right?” Jesse says. “I have no idea.”

Jane nods. “So, uh, your friend couldn’t take him? It had to be you?”

“He still lives with his folks, actually, so he couldn’t really just show up with a kid. They barely have room for the ones they have now.”

“What’s his name?”

Jesse thinks she means the friend, the answer to which was about to be ‘Badger’ but he doesn’t want to tell Jane he has a friend named Badger so he says, “Brandon.”

“Brandon,” Jane says, nodding. She leans over, peeks in through the window. The kid waves to her, Jane waves back and says, “Hi, Brandon!” and Jesse realizes her mistake.

“Wait, uh…” Jane looks up at him. Jesse’s about to tell her that Brandon isn’t the kid’s name, but then he realizes he’d have to follow that up by telling her the kid’s name and he doesn’t know it and that seems suspicious so he lets it lie. It’s not like Badger’s using the name, anyway. Nobody outside Badger’s family has called Badger “Brandon” in like half a decade at least.

“Yeah?” Jane urges and Jesse realizes he just told her to wait and then didn’t follow that up with anything. He flushes.

“No, uh, I was just saying, I think Brandon’s done with his breakfast so I was going to give him a bath,” Jesse says. “Not that, uh, not that it’s not great talking to you and all.”

Jane smiles and Jesse feels he’s staring into the sun even though the sun is behind him. “You ever bathed a kid before?”

“Yeah, I have, actually,” Jesse says, nodding. “My, uh, my little brother. I used to take care of him all the time when he was little and stuff.”

Jane squeezes his shoulder. “You’re a good dude, Jesse. Call me if you need any help, okay? And don’t worry about anything, Brandon can stay as long as he needs to.”

“Wow,” Jesse breathes. “Uh, thanks, Jane, you uh…you really rock.”

Jane opens the door to her own apartment, giving Jesse a little wave over her shoulder as she goes.

Jesse has to take a long, deep breath to reorient himself before he goes back inside.

 


End file.
